Violent Ends (White Monarch Book 2)

by Jessica Hawkins

  I wasn’t sure if I was crying in response to the vomit or for what I’d just seen. I looked past Cristiano’s blood-splattered pantlegs. Max had a bound-and-gagged woman over his shoulder as he hurriedly transported her from the back of the attackers’ SUV to one of Cristiano’s. Eduardo did the same with a different girl. “Where are they taking them?”

  “Got it all out? We have to move,” Cristiano said. “Get up.”

  “I can’t,” I said, the words grating from my raw throat.

  “La policía will be here soon,” he said. “And as I told you before, they’re not on my payroll. Either they’ll find an abandoned car and a pile of vomit or they’ll find an abandoned car, vomit, and you.” He took my elbow. “Let’s go.”

  I let him yank me out of the car as Max shut the doors to his car and climbed back behind the steering wheel. Blood and guts painted the broken pavement.

  “They’re taking the girls somewhere safe,” he said, dragging me along.

  Disoriented, I tried piecing the scene together. “Then why are they still gagged?”

  “So they don’t scream and fight. If Belmonte-Ruiz sends men after us, or if law enforcement shows up, it’ll get ugly. We need to go now. You’re walking too slow.”

  He ducked, hauled me over his shoulder, and carried me to the Audi.

  After settling me into the passenger’s seat and securing my seatbelt, he removed his shoes, went to the trunk, and returned with a fresh pair.

  Within seconds, we were speeding away.

  I gripped the door handle in an attempt to quell my uneasy stomach. “During the Easter party, you said you weren’t going to pay for another shipment,” I said. “You were going to take it instead.”

  “That’s what I did.”

  He rescued them?

  That would change everything. Everything.

  It would mean he wasn’t a monster at all—at least not to them. Only to me. Could that possibly be true? “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “Belmonte-Ruiz is the leading sex trafficker in the country—one of the top in Central and South America. They’re not easy to get to, so I interrupt them where I can.”

  “Like you did to Diego?” I asked as more puzzle pieces fit together.

  “Pretty much. Nobody who traffics for Belmonte-Ruiz is safe from me. I try to intercept shipments or in this case, hit their own men on a small job.” Cristiano steered into the next lane with one hand on top of the wheel. “The Calavera cartel doesn’t traffic people, Natalia.”

  “Help me understand,” I pleaded. “After everything I’ve heard, I don’t get why you’d help anyone.”

  He set his jaw, staring forward. “Because you came in here with your mind made up. You saw what you wanted to see, Natalia, but it’s time to open your damn eyes.”

  “You’re asking me to believe that all this—this . . . that everything I’ve seen—the women’s clothing in the basement, Sandra as fourteen-year-old bait, and the rumors about the Badlands—it’s all . . . it’s . . .” Overwhelmed by confusion, I put my face in my hands, shaking my head. “That’s not what this world is. If you steal from another cartel, you die.”

  “We’ve been hitting Belmonte-Ruiz for months, and I’m still standing,” he said. “And they aren’t the first cartel we’ve brought down.”

  “But all those people in the Badlands,” I said. “The gates—”

  “Are to keep those who’d hurt us out. That’s all.”

  “When we drove in, I saw people in the back of a semi.”

  He shifted in his seat, frowning. “It was headed south. We were taking people home—Guatemala, Brazil, Chile, wherever. It’s not like we can just send them on their merry way once we excavate them from bad situations. They need help to get home and get acclimated. And we have to be stealthy about it because of the circumstances.” He ran a hand over his mouth and rubbed his jaw before glancing over at me. “The Badlands are full of slaves and whores, Natalia. And laborers, misfits, and ruthless people.”

  I looked back at him, meeting his eyes a second before he turned them back out the windshield. “That’s what I’ve been saying all along.”

  “I never denied it. You were just looking at it from the wrong angle. It’s not a prison. It’s a sanctuary. They’re not abused. They’re rehabilitated.”

  Holy shit. A coat of goose bumps sprang over my skin. Why had it been so hard for me to see it? Why was it hard now to admit that it made sense?

  Because Cristiano was still my captor. My bad guy. He’d done the opposite of all this to me—so how could I be expected to see him as anything else?

  “What about me?” I asked. “You can’t get angry that I assumed everything I’d heard was true. You took me.”

  His nostrils flared as he swerved into the next lane and took a turn too fast. I braced myself against the door. The Audi’s smooth hum filled the silence until Cristiano smacked his palm against the steering wheel. After a few moments, he spoke calmly. “It would seem you’re the one exception.”

  Of course I was. How convenient. Cristiano got to be a hero to everyone else while keeping me locked up in his house. I crossed my arms and leaned into the corner. “I see. And Sandra? Is she also an exception?”

  “No.” He stopped for a red light, and I registered my surroundings. We were almost at La Madrina. “She’s had two years of therapy and rehab, including one of intense physical training—twice as hard as what you’ve been doing. She wanted to see those men suffer.” His grip tightened on the wheel. “She understood that the best way to help was to draw them out. There were about a dozen pairs of eyes on her, ready to spring into action if she needed help.” He snickered. “Well, eleven and a half if you count Max.”

  I didn’t laugh. “Where are Max and Eduardo taking the other girls?”

  “To the Badlands. There’s a team there to receive them. Clean them up, feed them, set them up in a safe house with whatever they need while they adjust. That’s the purpose of the toiletry kits you saw.” He blew out a sigh. “Then we learn who they are and where they came from.”

  I fingered the unfamiliar, obtrusive diamond on my hand as I eyed him. “And then?” I asked softly.

  When the light changed, Cristiano hit the gas and turned in the direction of the club. He blew out a breath. “We try to get them home. If they don’t have a home or don’t want to return—like Sandra—then we have good, fair work and modest housing for them in the Badlands.”

  My heart sank as the truth of the situation overwhelmed me. These women had been in the worst situations imaginable. Cristiano and his team had saved them. I had not only doubted him, but accused him of unspeakable things. Considering the lengths he went to in order to help, my character assassination must’ve been shitty to receive.

  My throat thickened. “They stay willingly?” I asked, feeling smaller than ever.

  “Yes. They have jobs and pay rent like anyone else. Because after what they’ve been through, many of them want to be anyone else.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “You . . . charge them rent?”

  “You don’t miss anything, do you?” A half-smile slid across his face. “Working gives them a sense of purpose, Natalia. The Badlands are a safe place for them to do it. I don’t need the rent money—I put it back into the community. But none of them came here for a handout. Most like to feel like they’re contributing.”

  I shifted in my seat, grateful for the dark cover of night to hide the range of emotions surely playing out on my face.

  How could I have missed all this?

  How were girls and boys and humans enduring this every day, and why weren’t more people helping?

  I looked down at my hands. Had I made a terrible mistake treating Cristiano with such disdain, even though he was still guilty of his crimes against me?

  “What about the men?” I asked. “Where are they from?”

  “All over—and right there. Many of the residents who live within the walls were there when we arrived.”
<
br />   “The town you plundered, raped, and pillaged.”

  “That’s the rumor, yes. And I thank you not to dispel it, since it keeps our reputation intact.”

  If Cristiano hadn’t said something similar at dinner a few nights earlier, I might not have believed him. But it seemed he not only appreciated his bad reputation—he needed it to continue the work he did.

  “We needed a town in a strategic location with natural security like the ocean to protect our backs, the mountain over our heads, and the flat desert to see anyone foolish enough to approach. We found that, and we took it.” He flexed his hand on the wheel and leaned an elbow on the windowsill. “But we came to the townspeople with respect,” he said. “We worked out an amicable deal with those who wanted to stay and compensated those who didn’t—all with non-disclosure agreements, of course.”

  It was like a fairytale, and I wanted to believe it. But regardless of what Cristiano had done for others, there was one person who wouldn’t get a happy ending.

  As he pulled into the lot behind La Madrina, the tires tread over a track to a sliding gate. He parked, exited, and helped me out before taking my bag and his suitcase from the trunk.

  “We’re sleeping here at the club?” I asked, removing Cristiano’s jacket and then the bulletproof vest.

  “Sí.” I tried to take my duffel from him, but he hoisted it over his shoulder. With the cell phone tucked into the bag’s bottom, I probably didn’t need to worry, but Cristiano seemed to know all. He had yet to punish me for anything like snooping or snarky comebacks and barbed words—but if he thought I’d used the phone at all to get in touch with Diego or anyone outside this cartel, his threats would no longer be idle.

  “Opening your mouth would be a death sentence.”

  He turned to me. “Leave the vest. Put your jacket back on. I won’t have club rats ogling my wife.”

  It didn’t much matter what I wore. We used a private entrance in the back and rode upstairs in an elevator reserved for him and his team.

  We walked out of the elevator and across a carpeted hallway that thumped under my feet. He unlocked his office and held the door open for me. It was an extension of his club—sleek and black with shiny surfaces and gold hardware. Computer monitors with surveillance footage made up the wall behind his desk. A bar cart in one corner held decanters, glasses, and spirits in varying sizes. I went to the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the club. Aqua, turquoise, and seafoam green lights splashed over the patrons and made shimmery, squiggly lines on the dancefloor.

  “Tonight’s theme—Bajo el Mar,” he said.

  “Under the sea.” So many people, and they probably had no idea they were being watched. “How long did you spy on me before you made your presence known?”

  “Long enough to know you were looking for me. Long enough to fantasize about stealing you away to my office.”

  “And here I am.” I turned to face him, wondering why he’d brought me here. Was he planning something? Or was a change of scenery supposed to be a gift to me? The spot of blood I’d seen on his shirt earlier was now one of many. “You wore a tie just to murder a man?”

  “No. I wore it to murder three.” He dipped his head with a sinister smile. “How about a drink, mi amor?”

  How easily we slipped back into our roles—Cristiano in control, and me trying to make sense of things and even anticipate his next move. “You don’t have what I want.”

  “I own a bar. Try me.”

  “Coca Light.”

  He cocked his head. “Of course I have it.”

  “Warm,” I said. “That’s the only way I like it.”

  He paused. “I’ll have them put it in the microwave.”

  Despite my uncertainty over what was happening around me, I almost laughed. “I mean unrefrigerated.”

  He winked and kept his eyes on me as he picked up his desk phone and placed my order.

  I glanced around the dimly-lit office shaded blue by the ocean theme. “Do we sleep on the couch?”

  “We can if you like. It’d be cozier.”

  “What’s the alternative?”

  “I have a bed on the next floor.”

  I raised my eyes to the ceiling as if I might be able to see through it.

  I could barely feel the vibration of the music below. “It’s so quiet in here.”

  “The walls are soundproof so the noise doesn’t disrupt me while I’m working. As are the walls upstairs.” He grinned. “So you and I don’t bother the patrons.”

  Another attempt at humor. But also, perhaps, a threat. Maybe outside the Badlands, there were no rules. Maybe willingness was more subjective here, in a dark club, where he’d tried to get me up to his office before. Could everything he’d told me tonight be canceled out by the fact that I was the exception?

  Could I appreciate that he was a savior worthy of praise and loyalty, but also hate him for making me his only victim?

  I had to keep my eyes and ears open. I admired the things he did, but to me, he was still the same man he’d been before the past couple hours. I couldn’t take the chance that if I gave in and saw him as something other than the devil, I might stop fighting for my freedom.

  I stared at him, utterly perplexed at the puzzle before me. This was exactly what I’d feared. Not knowing whether to hate him or to feel something else entirely.

  “I need to change my tampon,” I said.

  He blinked at me, opening and closing his mouth. “I—I can send one of my employees out for some. Did Jaz not, uh, pack some for you?”

  An ember of delight sparked in me as he stammered. Even the most composed man in the world could be derailed by menstruation. “I have some,” I said. “I just meant I need to use the bathroom.”

  “Ah.” He nodded at a closed door to his left. “Through there.”

  I hesitated. “Are there cameras in there? I don’t want an audience.”

  “For God’s sake, Natalia. No. I don’t surveil toilets.”

  My pleasure grew at the offense he took. It wouldn’t hurt to remind him that while he called me his wife, I was still his prisoner, and that even when he treated me well, he was only the hero in his own story—not mine.

  I picked up my bag and started across the room.

  “Leave that,” he said.

  I paused. “What?”

  “The bag,” he said evenly, and with no room for argument. “Put it on my desk.”

  My heart thumped once. I looked back at him. All teasing had left his face, and his dark demeanor had resurfaced. What did he want with the bag? I feared the answer was obvious. “I need it,” I said.

  “No, you don’t.” He nodded in front of him. “There.”

  Inhaling through my nose, I carried it to his desk, setting the bag down slowly. I wanted to protest more, but that would raise a red flag.

  I took a tampon from the inside pocket and glanced up, trying to gauge his shift in mood. There was an indisputable hardness in his eyes that hadn’t been there a moment ago.

  Could he possibly know about the phone? And how?

  Leaving the bag felt more like surrendering it, but I had no choice. If he knew enough to search the bag, then he knew what he was looking for.

  My gut smarted as I made my way to the bathroom.

  I had the distinct feeling that the hero had left the building.

  16

  Natalia

  Compared to the nightclub below, the marble full bathroom off Cristiano’s office was eerily quiet. I stood at the door, steeling myself to face the possibility that Cristiano had found the phone Diego had given me. I’d uncovered things about Cristiano tonight I never could’ve imagined. Good things. But I didn’t have him pegged in the least. He could still flip on a dime.

  I exited the bathroom and found him towering over his desk—and the contents of my overnight bag.

  “Coca Light, warm.” He nodded to his bar cart, which held a glass of soda that must’ve been delivered while I was in the bathroom.
r />   I took a sip hoping the carbonation would soothe my stomach—uneasy from both my earlier nausea and my current nerves—but otherwise kept my eyes on him.

  “You know,” he said, his eyes shadowed by heavy brows, “Diego was standing right about where you are now when he figured out the truth.”

  My fingers tingled with alarm. “What truth?”

  “I cannot be bought off or dissuaded from getting what I want. Whatever I desire, I find a way to take it.” He opened the top drawer to his desk. “But my brother proved me wrong.”

  I spun the giant rock on my finger and moved closer to the door. “How?”

  “He gave me you. And in exchange, I let go of something I’d wanted for a long time. But I don’t have you, Natalia. Not yet. Not the way he did.”

  When he glanced down into the drawer, I quickly scanned the items on his desk for the phone, but it wasn’t there. “I could’ve told you that before I walked down the aisle,” I said. “I could’ve saved you the trouble.”

  Cristiano took out a gun, and my back went straight as a rod. He’d found the phone—there was no question now. Holding the 9mm up to the light by its pearly white grip, silver and gold flashed.

  I stepped forward, my heart pounding as I recognized the White Monarch. I looked down at my rings, and it clicked—the reason they’d felt so familiar. The two-toned metal and pearl inlay wedding band complement the gun. All it needed was a big, fat diamond in the middle.

  The last time I’d seen the White Monarch was in the moments before it’d blown out a sicario’s brains. “Where’d you get that?” I asked.

  “When you pulled this on me eleven years ago, my life didn’t flash before my eyes—yours did. The child I’d protected since before she could walk had turned on me. You know what else I saw?”

  He didn’t wait for my answer.

  “Your loyalty to Diego. You offered yourself up in his place. I saw Bianca in you that day. Your mother would’ve followed your father to the grave. You risked your life for my brother’s. I admired that.” Still holding the gun, he leaned his hands on his desk. “And I hated it.”